A correlation between perceived usage of project management methodologies and project success in Horizon 2020 projects

Project management methodologies’ popularity has increased throughout the passage of time and is being more and more spread and used in many projects in different sectors. The last research and innovation programme funded by the European Union named “Horizon 2020” has implemented these methodologies as a requirement to grant funds to the consortiums that participate on the different call for proposals. The aim of the present investigation is to find empirical evidence to establish whether there exists a correlation between the perceived usage of project management methodologies and project success in these projects and determine which is that correlation. For that purpose, a questionnaire based on Project Management Methodology PM² Guidebook, which is the manual chosen by the European Commission for this programme, was properly developed and validated, to be used as the data collection tool to gain additional insights into these projects and draw conclusions regarding the study concern. This questionnaire created, enabled the researcher to gather data from a wide range of respondents. More than 100 projects funded by Horizon 2020 were taken as cases and data was collected. The results showed that, despite it not being as strong as expected due to subjective answers from respondents, there is a positive correlation between the perceived usage of project management methodologies and project success in Horizon 2020 projects. The overall application of project management tools and techniques have a great impact on project success and its utilization should be encouraged in future research programmes since there is a great opportunity to improve their project performance and success.